 Chapter 7 Part 2 of Sons and Lovers. All the life of Miriam's body was in her eyes, which were usually dark as a dark church, but could flame with light like a conflagration. Her fair scarcely ever altered from its look of brooding. She might have been one of the women who went with Mary when Jesus was dead. Her body was not flexible and living. She walked with a swing, rather heavily, her head bowed forward, pondering. She was not clumsy, and yet none of her movements seemed quite the movement. Often, when wiping the dishes, she would stand in bewilderment and chagrin because she had pulled in two halves a cup or a tumbler. It was as if, in her fear and self-mistrust, she put too much strength into the effort. There was no looseness or abandon about her. Everything was gripped stiff with intensity, and her effort, overcharged, closed in on itself. She rarely varied from her swinging forward intense walk. Occasionally she ran with Paul down the fields. Then her eyes blazed naked in a kind of ecstasy that frightened him. But she was physically afraid. If she were getting over a style, she gripped his hands in a little hard anguish and began to lose her presence of mind. And he could not persuade her to jump from even a small height. Her eyes dilated, became exposed and palpitating. No! she cried, half laughing in terror. No! You shall! he cried once, and jerking her forward he brought her falling from the fence. But her wild ah! of pain, as if she were losing consciousness, cut him. She landed on her feet safely, and afterwards had courage in this respect. She was very much dissatisfied with her lot. Don't you like being at home? Paul asked her, surprised. Who would? she answered low and intense. What is it? I'm all day cleaning what the boys make just as bad in five minutes. I don't want to be at home. What do you want, then? I want to do something. I want a chance like anybody else. Why should I, because I'm a girl, be kept at home and not allowed to be anything? What chance have I? Chance of what? Of knowing anything. Of learning. Of doing anything. It's not fair, because I'm a woman. She seemed very bitter. Paul wondered. In his own home Annie was almost glad to be a girl. She had not so much responsibility. Things were lighter for her. She never wanted to be other than a girl. But Miriam almost fiercely wished she were a man, and yet she hated men at the same time. But it's as well to be a woman as a man, he said, frowning. Ha! Is it? Men have everything. I should think women ought to be as glad to be women as men are to be men, he answered. No, she shook her head. No, everything the men have. But what do you want? He asked. I want to learn. Why should it be that I know nothing? What, such as mathematics and French? Why shouldn't I know mathematics? Yes, she cried, her eye expanding in a kind of defiance. Well, you can learn as much as I know, he said. I'll teach you, if you like. Her eyes dilated. She mistrusted him as teacher. Would you? He asked. Her head had dropped and she was sucking her finger broodingly. Yes, she said hesitatingly. He used to tell his mother all these things. I'm going to teach Miriam algebra, he said. Well, replied Mrs. Morrell, I hope she'll get fat on it. When he went up to the farm on the Monday evening it was drawing twilight. Miriam was just sweeping up the kitchen and was kneeling at the hearth when he entered. Everyone was out but her. She looked round at him, flushed, her dark eyes shining, her fine hair falling about her face. Hello! she said, soft and musical. I knew it was you. How? I knew your step. Nobody treads so quick and firm. He sat down, sighing. Ready to do some algebra? he asked, drawing a little book from his pocket. But he could feel her backing away. You said you wanted, he insisted. Tonight, though? she faltered. But I came on purpose, and if you want to learn it you must begin. She took up her ashes in the dustpan and looked at him, half tremulously, laughing. Yes, but tonight, you see, I haven't thought of it. Well, my goodness, take the ashes and come. He went and sat on the stone bench in the backyard where the big milk cans were standing, tipped up, to air. The men were in the cowsheds. He could hear the little sing-song of the milk spurting into the pales. Presently she came, bringing some big greenish apples. You know you like them, she said. He took a bite. Sit down, he said, with his mouth full. She was short-sided and peered over his shoulder. He had irritated him. He gave her the book quickly. Here, he said, it's only letters for figures. You put down A instead of two or six. They worked, he talking, she with her head down on the book. He was quick and hasty. She never answered. Occasionally when he demanded of her, do you see? She looked up at him, her eyes wide with the half-laugh that comes of fear. Don't you? He cried. He had been too fast. But she said nothing. He questioned her more, then got hot. It made his blood rouse to see her there, as it were, at his mercy. Her mouth opened, her eyes dilated with laughter that was afraid, apologetic, ashamed. Then Edgar came along with two buckets of milk. Hello! he said. What are you doing? Algebra, replied Paul. Algebra! repeated Edgar curiously. Then he passed on with a laugh. Paul took a bite at his forgotten apple, looked at the miserable cabbages in the garden, pecked into lace by the fouls, and he wanted to pull them up. Then he glanced at Miriam. She was pouring over the book, seemed absorbed in it, yet trembling lest she could not get at it. It made him cross. She was ruddy and beautiful. Yet her soul seemed to be intensely supplicating. The Algebra book she closed, shrinking, knowing he was angered, and at the same instant he grew gentle, seeing her hurt because she did not understand. But things came slowly to her. And when she held herself in a grip, seemed so utterly humble before the lesson, it made his blood rouse. He stormed at her, got ashamed, continued the lesson, and grew furious again, abusing her. She listened in silence. Occasionally, very rarely, she defended herself. Her liquid dark eyes blazed at him. You don't give me time to learn it! She said, All right! he answered, throwing the book on the table and lighting a cigarette. Then after a while he went back to her, repentant. So the lessons went. He was always either in a rage or very gentle. What do you tremble your soul before it for? He cried, You don't learn Algebra with your blessed soul. Can't you look at it with your clear, simple wits? Often when he went again into the kitchen, Mrs. Livers would look at him reproachfully, saying, Paul, don't be so hard on Miriam. She may not be quick, but I'm sure she tries. I can't help it. He said, rather pitiably, I go off like it. You don't mind me, Miriam, do you? He asked of the girl later. No, she reassured him in her beautiful deep tones. No, I don't mind. Don't mind me, it's my fault. But in spite of himself, his blood began to boil with her. It was strange that no one else made him in such fury. He flared against her once he threw the pencil in her face. There was a silence. She turned her face slightly aside. I didn't—he began, but got no farther, feeling weak in all his bones. She never reproached him or was angry with him. He was often cruelly ashamed. But still again his anger burst like a bubble surcharged. And still, when he saw her eager, silent, as it were, blind face, he felt he wanted to throw the pencil in it. And still, when he saw her hand trembling and her mouth parted with suffering, his heart was scalded with pain for her. And because of the intensity to which she roused him, he sought her. Then he often avoided her and went with Edgar. Miriam and her brother were naturally antagonistic. Edgar was a rationalist, who was curious, and had a sort of scientific interest in life. It was a great bitterness to Miriam to see herself deserted by Paul for Edgar, who seemed so much lower. But the youth was very happy with her elder brother. The two men spent afternoons together on the land or in the loft, doing carpentry, when it rained. And they talked together, where Paul taught Edgar the songs he himself had learned from Annie at the piano. And often all the men, Mr. Livers as well, had bitter debates on the nationalizing of the land in similar problems. Paul had already heard his mother's views, and as these were as yet his own, he argued for her. Miriam attended and took part, but was all the time waiting until it should be over, and a personal communication might begin. After all, she said within herself, if the land were nationalized, Edgar and Paul and I would be just the same. So she waited for the youth to come back to her. He was studying for his painting. He loved to sit at home, alone with his mother, at night, working and working. She sewed or read. Then, looking up from his task, he would rest his eyes for a moment on her face that was bright with living warmth, and he returned gladly to his work. I can do my best things when you sit there in your rocking chair, mother," he said. I'm sure." She exclaimed, sniffing with mock skepticism. But she felt it was so, and her heart quivered with brightness. For many hours she sat still, slightly conscious of him laboring away, whilst she worked or read her book. And he, with all his soul's intensity directing his pencil, could feel her warmth inside him like strength. They were both very happy so, and both unconscious of it. These times, that meant so much, and which were real living, they almost ignored. He was conscious only when stimulated. A sketch finished, he always wanted to take it to Miriam. Then he was stimulated into knowledge of the work he had produced unconsciously. In contact with Miriam he gained insight. His vision went deeper. From his mother he drew the life warmth, the strength to produce. Miriam urged this warmth into intensity like a white light. When he returned to the factory the conditions of work were better. He had Wednesday afternoon off to go to the art school, Miss Jordan's provision, returning in the evening. Then the factory closed at six instead of eight on Thursday and Friday evenings. One evening in the summer Miriam and he went over the fields by Herod's Farm on their way from the library, home. So it was only three miles to Willey Farm. There was a yellow glow over the mowing-grass and the sorrel heads burned to crimson. Gradually as they walked along the high land the gold in the west sank down to red, the red to crimson, and then the chill blue crept up against the glow. They came out upon the high road to Alfredton, which ran white between the darkening fields. There Paul hesitated. It was two miles home for him, one mile forward for Miriam. They both looked up the road that ran in shadow right under the glow of the northwest sky. On the crest of the hill, Selby, with its stark houses and the up-pricked headstocks of the pit, stood in black silhouette small against the sky. He looked at his watch. Nine o'clock, he said. The pair stood, loathed apart, hugging their books. The wood is so lovely now, she said. I wanted you to see it. He followed her slowly across the road to the white gate. They grumble so if I'm late, he said. But you're not doing anything wrong, she answered impatiently. He followed her across the nibbled pasture in the dusk. There was a coolness in the wood, a scent of leaves, of honeysuckle, and a twilight. The two walked in silence. Night came wonderfully there among the throng of dark tree trunks. He looked round expectant. She wanted to show him a certain wild rose bush she had discovered. She knew it was wonderful, and yet, till he had seen it, she felt it had not come into her soul. Only he could make it her own, immortal. She was dissatisfied. Dew was already on the paths. In the old oak wood a mist was rising, and he hesitated, wondering whether one whiteness were a strand of fog or only campion flowers pallid in a cloud. By the time they came to the pine trees, Miriam was getting very eager and very tense. Her bush might be gone. She might not be able to find it, and she wanted it so much. Almost passionately she wanted to be with him when he stood before the flowers. They were going to have a communion together, something that thrilled her, something holy. He was walking beside her in silence. They were very near to each other. He was very troubled, and he listened vaguely anxious. Coming to the edge of the wood they saw the sky in front, like mother of pearl, and the earth growing dark. Somewhere on the outermost branches of the pine wood the honeysuckle was streaming scent. Where, he asked. Down the middle path she murmured quivering. When they turned the corner of the path she stood still. She could walk between the pines, gazing rather frightened. She could distinguish nothing for some moments, the graying light robbed things of their color. Then she saw her bush. Ah! she cried hastening forward. It was very still. The tree was tall and straggling. It had thrown its briars over a hawthorn bush, and its long streamers trailed thick, right down to the grass, squashing the darkness everywhere with great spilt stars, pure white. In bosses of ivory and in large, splashed stars the roses gleamed on the darkness of foliage and stems and grass. Paul and Miriam stood close together, silent, and watched. Point after point the steady roses shone out to them, seeming to kindle something in their souls. The dust came like smoke around, and still did not put out the roses. Paul looked into Miriam's eyes. She was pale and expectant with wonder. Her lips were parted, and her dark eyes lay open to him. His looks seemed to travel down into her. Her soul quivered. It was the communion she wanted. He turned aside as if pained. He turned to the bush. They seemed as if they walk like butterflies and shake themselves, he said. She looked at her roses. They were white, some incurved and holy, others expanded in an ecstasy. The tree was dark as a shadow. She lifted her hand impulsively to the flowers. She went forward and touched them in worship. Let us go, he said. There was a cool scent of ivory roses, a white, virgin scent. Something made him feel anxious and imprisoned. The two walked in silence. Till Sunday he said quietly and left her, and she walked home slowly, feeling her soul satisfied with the holiness of the night. He stumbled down the path. As soon as he was out of the wood, in the free open meadow where he could breathe, he started to run as fast as he could. It was like a delicious delirium in his veins. Always when he went with Miriam, and it grew rather late, he knew his mother was fretting and getting angry about him. Why, he could not understand. As he went into the house, flinging down his cap, his mother looked up at the clock. She had been sitting thinking because a chill to her eyes prevented her reading. She could feel Paul being drawn away by this girl, and she did not care for Miriam. She is one of those who will want to suck a man's soul out till he has none of his own left, she said to herself, and he is just such a gaby as to let himself be absorbed. She will never let him become a man, she never will. So, while he was away with Miriam, Mrs. Morrell grew more and more worked up. She glanced at the clock and said, coldly and rather tired, You've been far enough to-night. His soul, warm and exposed from contact with the girl, shrank. You must have been right home with her, his mother continued. He would not answer. Mrs. Morrell, looking at him quickly, saw his hair was damp on his forehead with haste, and saw him frowning in his heavy fashion, resentfully. She must be wonderfully fascinating that you can't get away from her, but must go trailing eight miles at this time of night. He was hurt between the past glamour with Miriam and the knowledge that his mother fretted. He had meant not to say anything, to refuse to answer, but he could not harden his heart to ignore his mother. You like to talk to her?" he answered irritably. Is there no one else to talk to? You wouldn't say anything if I went with Edgar. You know I should. You know, whoever you went with, I should say it was too far for you to go trailing late at night when you've been denoting him. Besides, her voice suddenly flashed into anger and contempt. It is disgusting bits of lads and girls courting. It is not courting," he cried. I don't know what else you call it. It's not. Do you think we spoon and do? We only talk. Till goodness knows what time and distance was the sarcastic rejoinder. Paul snapped at the laces of his boots angrily. What are you so mad about? he asked, because you don't like her. I don't say I don't like her, but I don't hold with children keeping company and never did. But you don't mind our Annie going out with Jim Inger? They've more sense than you two. Why? Our Annie's not one of the deep sort. He failed to see the meaning of this remark, but his mother looked tired. She was never so strong after William's death, and her eyes hurt her. Well, he said, it's so pretty in the country. Mr. Sleeth asked about you. He said he'd missed you. Are you a bit better? I ought to have been in bed a long time ago," she replied. Why, mother, you know you wouldn't have gone before quarter past ten. Oh, yes, I should. Oh, little woman, you'd say anything now you're disagreeable with me, wouldn't you? He kissed her forehead that he knew so well, the deep marks between the brows, the rising of the fine hair, graying now, and the proud setting of the temples. His hand lingered on her shoulder after his kiss. Then he went slowly to bed. He had forgotten Miriam. He only saw how his mother's hair was lifted back from her warm, broad brow, and somehow she was hurt. Then the next time he saw Miriam, he said to her, Don't let me be late to-night, not later than ten o'clock. My mother gets so upset. Miriam dropped her head, brooding. Why does she get upset? She asked. Because she says I ought to be out late when I have to get up early. Very well, said Miriam rather quietly, with just a touch of a sneer. He resented that, and he was usually late again. That there was any love growing between him and Miriam neither of them would have acknowledged. He thought he was too sane for such sentimentality, and she thought herself too lofty. They both were late in coming to maturity, and psychical ripeness was much behind even the physical. Miriam was exceedingly sensitive, as her mother had always been. The slightest grossness made her recoil almost in anguish. Her brothers were brutal, but never coarse in speech. The men did all the discussing of farm-matters outside. Perhaps because of the continual business of birth and of beginning which goes on upon every farm, Miriam was the more hypersensitive to the matter, and her blood was chastened almost to disgust of the faintest suggestion of such intercourse. Paul took his pitch from her, and their intimacy went on in an utterly blanched and chaste fashion. It could never be mentioned that the mare was in full. When he was nineteen, he was earning only twenty shillings a week, but he was happy. His painting went well, and life went well enough. On the Good Friday he organized a walk to the Hamlock Stone. There were three lads of his own age, then Annie and Arthur, Miriam and Jeffrey. Arthur, apprenticed as an electrician in Nottingham, was home for the holiday. Moral, as usual, was up early, whistling and sawing in the yard. At seven o'clock the family heard him buy three penny-worth of hot-cross buns. He talked with gusto to the little girl who brought them, calling her my darling. He turned away several boys who came with more buns, telling them they had been kested by a little lass. Then Mrs. Moral got up, and the family straggled down. It was an immense luxury to everybody, this lying in bed just beyond the ordinary time on a weekday. And Paul and Arthur read before breakfast, and had the meal unwashed, sitting in their shirt sleeves. This was another holiday luxury. The room was warm. Everything felt free of care and anxiety. There was a sense of plenty in the house. While the boys were reading Mrs. Moral went into the garden. They were now in another house, an old one, near the Scargill Street home, which had been left soon after William had died. Directly came an excited cry from the garden. Paul! Paul, come and look! It was his mother's voice. He threw down his book and went out. There was a long garden that ran to a field. It was a gray, cold day, with a sharp wind blowing out of Derbyshire. Two fields away Bestwood began, with a jumble of roofs and red house ends, out of which rose the church tower and the spire of the congregational chapel. And beyond went woods and hills, right away to the pale gray heights of the Penning chain. Paul looked down the garden for his mother. Her head appeared among the young current bushes. Come here! she cried. What for? he answered. Come and see! She had been looking at the buds on the current trees. Paul went up. To think, she said, that here I might never have seen them. Her son went to her side. Under the fence, in a little bed, was a ravel of poor grassy leaves, such as come from very immature bulbs, and three sillas in bloom. Mrs. Morrill pointed to the deep blue flowers. Now just see those, she exclaimed. I was looking at the current bushes when, think-side to myself, there's something very blue, is it a bit of sugar-bag? And there, behold you, sugar-bag, three glories of the snow and such beauties! But where on earth did they come from? I don't know, said Paul. Well, that's a marvel now. I thought I knew every weed and blade in this garden, but haven't they done well? You see, that gooseberry bush just shelters them, not nipped, not touched. He crouched down and turned up the bells of the little blue flowers. They're a glorious color, he said. Aren't they? she cried. I guess they come from Switzerland, where they say they have such lovely things. Fancy them against the snow. But where have they come from? They can't have blown here, can they? Then he remembered having set here a lot of little trash of bulbs to mature. And you never told me, she said. No, I thought I'd leave it till they might flower. And now you see! I might have missed them, and I've never had a glory of the snow in my garden in my life. She was full of excitement and elation. The garden was an endless joy to her. Paul was thankful for her sake at last to be in a house with a long garden that went down to a field. Every morning after breakfast she went out and was happy pottering about in it. And it was true, she knew every weed and blade. Everybody turned up for the walk. Food was packed, and they set off a merry, delighted party. They hung over the wall of the mill-race, dropped paper in the water on one side of the tunnel, and watched it shoot out on the other. They stood on the foot-bridge over Boathouse Station and looked at the metals gleaming coldly. You should see the flying Scotsman come through at half-past six! said Leonard, whose father was a signalman. Lad, but she doesn't have buzz! And the little party looked up the lines one way to London and the other way to Scotland, and they felt the touch of these two magical places. In Ilkeston the colliers were waiting in gangs for the public houses to open. It was a town of idleness and lounging. At Stanton Gate the iron foundry blazed. Over everything there were great discussions. At Trowell they crossed again from Derbyshire into Nottinghamshire. They came to the Hemlock Stone at dinner time. Its field was crowded with folk from Nottingham and Ilkeston. They had expected a venerable and dignified monument. They found a little, gnarled, twisted stump of rock, something like a decayed mushroom, standing out pathetically on the side of a field. Leonard and Dick immediately proceeded to carve their initials, LW and RP, in the old red sandstone. But Paul desisted, because he had read in the newspaper satirical remarks about initial carvers who could find no other road to immortality. Then all the lads climbed to the top of the rock to look round. Everywhere in the field below factory girls and lads were eating lunch or sporting about. Beyond was the garden of an old manor. It had U-hedges and thick clumps and borders of yellow crocuses round the lawn. See! said Paul de Miriam, what a quiet garden! She saw the dark U's and the golden crocuses, then she looked gratefully. He had not seemed to belong to her among all these others. He was different then, not her Paul, who understood the slightest quiver of her innermost soul, but something else speaking another language than hers. How it hurt her and deadened her very perceptions. Only when he came right back to her, leaving his other, his lesser half, as she thought, would she feel alive again. And now he asked her to look at this garden, wanting the contact with her again. Impatient of the set in the field, she turned to the quiet lawn, surrounded by sheaves of shut-up crocuses. A feeling of stillness, almost of ecstasy, came over her. It felt almost as if she were alone with him in this garden. Then he left her again and joined the others. Soon they started home. Miriam loitered behind, alone. She did not fit in with the others. She could very rarely get into human relations with anyone. So her friend, her companion, her lover, was nature. She saw the sun declining wanly. In the dusky, cold hedgerows were some red leaves. She lingered to gather them, tenderly, passionately. The love and her fingertips caressed the leaves. The passion in her heart came to a glow upon the leaves. Suddenly she realized she was alone in a strange road, and she hurried forward. Turning a corner in the lane, she came upon Paul, who stood bent over something, his mind fixed on it, working away steadily, patiently, a little hopelessly. She hesitated in her approach to watch. He remained concentrated in the middle of the road. Beyond, one rift of rich gold in that colorless gray evening, seemed to make him stand out in dark relief. She saw him, slender and firm, as if the setting sun had given him to her. A deep pain took hold of her, and she knew she must love him. And she had discovered him, discovered in him a rare potentiality, discovered his loneliness. Quivering as at some annunciation, she went slowly forward. At last he looked up. Why, he exclaimed gratefully, have you waited for me? She saw a deep shadow in his eyes. What is it? she asked. The spring broken here. And he showed her where his umbrella was injured. Instantly, with some shame, she knew he had not done the damage himself but that Geoffrey was responsible. It is only an old umbrella, isn't it? She asked. She wondered why he, who did not usually trouble over trifles, made such a mountain of this mole hill. But it was Williams and my mother can't help but know. He said quietly, still patiently working at the umbrella. The words went through Miriam like a blade. This, then, was the confirmation of her vision of him. She looked at him, but there was about him a certain reserve and she dared not comfort him, not even speak softly to him. Come on, he said, I can't do it. And they went in silence along the road. That same evening they were walking along under the trees by Neather Green, he was talking to her fretfully, seemed to be struggling to convince himself. You know, he said with an effort, if one person loves, the other does. Ah! she answered. Like mother said to me when I was little, love begets love. Yes, something like that I think it must be. I hope so, because if it were not, love might be a very terrible thing, she said. Yes, but it is, at least with most people, he answered. And Miriam, thinking he had assured himself, felt strong in herself. She always regarded that sudden coming upon him in the lane as a revelation, and this conversation remained graven in her mind as one of the letters of the law. Now she stood with him and for him. When, about this time, he outraged the family feeling, at Willy Farm by some overbearing insult, she stuck to him and believed he was right. And at this time she dreamed dreams of him vivid, unforgettable. These dreams came again later on, developed to a more subtle psychological stage. End of Part 2 of Chapter 7. Chapter 7, Part 3 of Sons and Lovers. On the Easter Monday the same party took an excursion to Wingfield Manor. It was great excitement to Miriam to catch a train at Setley Bridge amid all the bustle of the bank holiday crowd. They left the train at Alfrton. Paul was interested in the street and in the colliers with their dogs. Here was a new race of miners. Miriam did not live till they came to the church. They were all rather timid of entering, with their bags of food, for fear of being turned out. Leonard, a comic, thin fellow, went first. Paul, who would have died rather than to be sent back, would last. The place was decorated for Easter. In the font hundreds of white Narcissi seemed to be growing. The air was dim and coloured from the windows, and thrilled with a subtle scent of lilies and Narcissi. In that atmosphere Miriam's soul came into a glow. Paul was afraid of the things he mustn't do, and he was sensitive to the feel of the place. Miriam turned to him. He answered, They were together. He would not go beyond the Communion Rail. She loved him for that. Her soul expanded into prayer beside him. He felt the strange fascination of shadowy religious places. All his latent mysticism quivered into life. She was drawn to him. He was a prayer along with her. Miriam very rarely talked to the other lads. This once became awkward in conversation with her. So usually she was silent. It was past midday when they climbed the steep path to the Manor. All things shone softly in the sun, which was wonderfully warm and enlivening. Selendines and violets were out. Everybody was tip-top full with happiness. The glitter of the ivy, the soft, atmospheric grey of the castle walls, the gentleness of everything near the ruin, was perfect. The Manor is of hard pale grey stone, and the other walls are blank and calm. The young folk were in raptures. They went in trepidation, almost afraid that the delight of exploring this ruin might be denied them. In the first courtyard, within the high broken walls were farm carts, with their shafts lying idle on the ground, the tires of the wheels brilliant with gold red rust. It was very still. All eagerly paid their sixpences, and went timidly through the fine clean arch of the inner courtyard. They were shy. Here on the pavement, where the hall had been, an old thorn-tree was budding. All kinds of strange openings and broken rooms were in the shadow around them. After lunch they set off once more to explore the ruin. This time the girls went with the boys, who could act as guides and expositors. There was one tall tower in a corner, rather tottering, where they say Mary Queen of Scots was imprisoned. Think of the queen going up here! said Miriam in a low voice as she climbed the hollow stairs. If she could get up, said Paul, for she had rheumatism like anything, I reckon they treated her rottenly. You don't think she deserved it? asked Miriam. No I don't. She was only lively. They continued to mount the winding staircase. A high wind blowing through the loopholes went rushing up the shaft and filled the girls' skirts like a balloon so that she was ashamed until he took the hem of her dress and held it down for her. He did it perfectly simply as he would have picked up her glove. She remembered this always. Round the broken top of the tower the Ivy bushed out, old and handsome. Also there were a few chill guillivers in pale cold bud. Miriam wanted to lean over for some Ivy but he would not let her. Instead she had to wait behind him and take from him each spray as he gathered it and held it to her, each one separately, in the purest manner of chivalry. The tower seemed to rock in the wind. They looked over miles and miles of wooded country and country with gleams of pasture. The crypt underneath the manor was beautiful and in perfect preservation. Paul made a drawing. Miriam stayed with him. She was thinking of Mary Queen of Scots looking with her strained, hopeless eyes that could not understand misery over the hills whence no help came, or sitting in this crypt being told of a god as cold as the place she sat in. They set off again gaily, looking round on their beloved manor that stood so clean and big on its hill. Supposing you could have that farm, said Paul to Miriam. Yes! Wouldn't it be lovely to come and see you? They were now in the bare country of stone walls, which he loved, and which, though only ten miles from home, seemed so foreign to Miriam. The party was straggling. As they were crossing a large meadow that sloped away from the sun, along a path embedded with innumerable tiny glittering points, Paul, walking alongside, laced his fingers in the strings of the bag Miriam was carrying, and instantly she felt Annie behind, watchful and jealous. But the meadow was bathed in a glory of sunshine, and the path was jeweled, and it was seldom that he gave her any sign. She held her fingers very still among the strings of the bag, his fingers touching, and the place was golden as a vision. At last they came into the straggling gray village of Crich that lies high. Beyond the village was the famous Crich stand that Paul could see from the garden at home. The party pushed on. Great expansive country spread around and below. The lads were eager to get to the top of the hill. It was capped by a round knoll, half of which was now cut away, and on the top of which stood an ancient monument, sturdy and squat, for signalling in old days far down into the level lands of Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire. It was blowing so hard, high up there in the exposed place, that the only way to be safe was to stand nailed by the wind to the side of the tower. At their feet fell the precipice where the limestone was quarried away. Below was a jumble of hills and tiny villages, Matic, Ambergate, Stony Middleton. The lads were eager to spy out the church of Bestwood, far away among the rather crowded country on the left. They were disgusted that it seemed to stand on a plain. They saw the hills of Derbyshire fall into the monotony of the Midlands that swept away south. Merriam was somewhat scared by the wind, but the lads enjoyed it. They went on, miles and miles, to Whitsdenwell. All the food was eaten, everybody was hungry, and there was very little money to get home with. But they managed to procure a loaf and a current loaf, which they hacked to pieces with shut knives, and ate sitting on the wall near the bridge, watching the bright derwent rushing by, and the breaks from Matlock pulling up at the inn. Paul was now pale with weariness. He had been responsible for the party all day, and now he was done. Merriam understood, and kept close to him, and he left himself in her hands. They had an hour to wait at Ambergate Station. Trains came, crowded with excursionists returning to Manchester, Birmingham, and London. We might be going there. I hope easily might think we're going that far, said Paul. They got back rather late. Merriam, walking home with Geoffrey, watched the moon rise big and red and misty. She felt something was fulfilled in her. She had an elder sister, Agatha, who was a schoolteacher. Between the two girls was a feud. Merriam considered Agatha worldly, and she wanted herself to be a schoolteacher. One Saturday afternoon, Agatha and Merriam were upstairs dressing. Their bedroom was over the stable. It was a low room, not very large, and bare. Merriam had nailed on the wall a reproduction of Veronese's St. Catherine. She loved the woman who sat in the window, dreaming. Her own windows were too small to sit in. But the front one was dripped over with honeysuckle and Virginia creeper, and looked upon the treetops of oak wood across the yard, while the little back window, no bigger than a handkerchief, was a loophole to the east, to the dawn beating up against the beloved round hills. The two sisters did not talk much to each other. Agatha, who was fair and small and determined, had rebelled against the home atmosphere, against the doctrine of the other cheek. She was out in the world now, in a fair way to be independent, interested on worldly values, on appearance, on manners, on position. Which Merriam would Faine have ignored. Both girls liked to be upstairs, out of the way, when Paul came. They preferred to come running down, open the stair-foot door, and see him watching, expecting of them. Merriam stood painfully pulling over her head a rosary he had given her. It caught in the fine mesh of her hair. But at last she had it on, and the red-brown wooden beads looked well against her cool brown neck. She was a well-developed girl and very handsome. But in the little looking-glass nailed against the whitewashed wall, she could only see a fragment of herself at a time. Agatha had bought a little mirror of her own, which she propped up to suit herself. Merriam was near the window. Suddenly she heard the well-known click of the chain, and she saw Paul fling open the gate, push his bicycle into the yard. She saw him look at the house, and she shrank away. He walked in a nonchalant fashion, and his bicycle went with him as if it were a live thing. "'Paul's come,' she exclaimed. "'Aren't you glad?' asked Agatha, cuttingly. Merriam stood in amazement and bewildered me. "'Well, aren't you?' she asked. "'Yes, but I'm not going to let him see it, and think I wanted him.' Merriam was startled. She heard him putting his bicycle in the stable underneath, and talking to Jimmy, who had been a pit-horse, and who was seedy. "'Well, Jimmy, my lad, how archer! Knub it sick and sadly like? Why, then, it's a shame, my out-lad!' She heard the rope run through the hole as the horse lifted its head from the lad's caress. How she loved to listen when he thought only the horse could hear. But there was a serpent in her Eden. She searched earnestly in herself to see if she wanted Paul Morrill. She felt there would be some disgrace in it. Full of twisted feeling, she was afraid she did want him. She stood self-convicted. Then came an agony of new shame. She shrank within herself in a coil of torture. Did she want Paul Morrill? And did he know she wanted him? What a subtle infamy upon her! She felt as if her whole soul coiled into knots of shame. Agatha was dressed first and ran downstairs. Merriam heard her greet the lad gaily, knew exactly how brilliant her gray eyes became with that tone. She herself would have felt it bold to have greeted him in such wise. Yet there she stood under the self-accusation of wanting him, tied to that stake of torture. In bitter perplexity she kneeled down and prayed, Oh Lord, let me not love Paul Morrill. Keep me from loving him if I ought not to love him. Something anomalous in the prayer arrested her. She lifted her head and pondered. How could it be wrong to love him? Love was God's gift, and yet it caused her shame. That was because of him, Paul Morrill. But then it was not his affair, it was her own, between herself and God. She was to be a sacrifice. But it was God's sacrifice, not Paul Morrill's or her own. After a few minutes she hid her face in the pillow again and said, But Lord, if it is thy will that I should love him, Make me love him. As Christ would, who died for the souls of men, Make me love him splendidly, because he is thy son. She remained kneeling for some time, quite still, and deeply moved. Her black hair against the red squares and the lavender-sprig squares of the patchwork quilt. Prayer was almost essential to her. Then she fell into that rapture of self-sacrifice, Identifying herself with a God who was sacrificed, Which gives to so many human souls their deepest bliss. When she went downstairs, Paul was lying back in an armchair, Holding forth with much vehemence to Agatha, Who was scorning a little painting he had brought to show her. Miriam glanced at the two and avoided their levity. She went into the parlor to be alone. It was tea-time before she was able to speak to Paul, And then her manner was so distant he thought he had offended her. Miriam discontinued her practice of going each Thursday evening to the library in Bestwood. After calling for Paul regularly during the whole spring, A number of trifling incidents and tiny insults from his family Awakened her to their attitude towards her, And she decided to go no more. So she announced to Paul one evening she would not call at his house again for him on Thursday nights. Why? he asked, very short. Nothing, only I'd rather not. Very well. But, she faltered, If you'd care to meet me, we could still go together. Meet you where? Somewhere, where you like. I shan't meet you anywhere. I don't see why you shouldn't keep calling for me. But if you won't, I don't want to meet you. So the Thursday evenings which had been so precious to her, and to him, were dropped. He worked instead. Mrs. Morrell sniffed with satisfaction at this arrangement. He would not have it that they were lovers. The intimacy between them had been kept so abstract, Such a matter of the soul, all thought and weary struggle into consciousness, That he saw it only as a platonic friendship. He stoutly denied there was anything else between them. Miriam was silent, or else she very quietly agreed. He was a fool who did not know what was happening to himself. By tacit agreement they ignored the remarks and insinuations of their acquaintances. We aren't lovers, we are friends, he said to her. We know it! Let them talk. What does it matter what they say? Sometimes, as they were walking together, she slipped her arm timidly into his. But he always resented it, and she knew it. It caused a violent conflict in him. With Miriam he was always on the high plane of abstraction, And his natural fire of love was transmitted into the fine stream of thought. She would have it so. If he were jolly and, as she put it, flippant, She waited till he came back to her, till the change had taken place in him again, And he was wrestling with his own soul, frowning, passionate in his desire for understanding. And in this passion for understanding her soul lay close to his, She had him all to herself. But he must be made abstract first. Then, if she put her arm in his, it caused him almost torture. His consciousness seemed to split. The place where she was touching him ran hot with friction. He was one internecine battle, and he became cruel to her because of it. One evening, in mid-summer, Miriam called at the house, warm from climbing. Paul was alone in the kitchen. His mother could be heard moving about upstairs. Come and look at the sweet peas, he said to the girl. They went into the garden. The sky behind the townlet and the church was orange-red. The flower garden was flooded with a strange warm light That lifted every leaf-induced significance. Paul passed along a fine row of sweet peas, Gathering a blossom here and there, All cream and pale blue. Miriam followed, breathing the fragrance. To her, flowers appealed with such strength, She felt she must make them part of herself. When she bent and breathed the flower, It was as if she and the flower were loving each other. Paul hated her for it. There seemed a sort of exposure about the action, Something too intimate. When he had got a fair bunch, they returned to the house. He listened for a moment to his mother's quiet movement upstairs. Then he said, Come here, let me pin them in for you. He arranged them two or three at a time In the bosom of her dress, Stepping back now and then to see the effect. You know, he said, taking the pin out of his mouth, A woman ought always to arrange her flowers before her glass. Miriam laughed. She thought flowers ought to be pinned in one's dress Without any care, That Paul should take pains to fix her flowers for her was his whim. He was rather offended at her laughter. Some women do, those who look decent, he said. Miriam laughed again, but mirthlessly, To hear him thus mix her up with women in a general way. From most men she would have ignored it, But from him it hurt her. He had nearly finished arranging the flowers When he heard his mother's footsteps on the stairs. Hurriedly, he pushed in the last pin and turned away. Don't let mother know, he said. Miriam picked up her books and stood in the doorway Looking with chagrin at the beautiful sunset. She would call for Paul no more, she said. Good evening, Mrs. Morrell, she said, in a deferential way. She sounded as if she felt she had no right to be there. Oh, is it you, Miriam? Replied Mrs. Morrell coolly. But Paul insisted on everybody's accepting his friendship with the girl, And Mrs. Morrell was too wise to have any open rupture. It was not till he was twenty years old That the family could ever afford to go away for a holiday. Mrs. Morrell had never been away for a holiday, Except to see her sister, since she had been married. Now at last Paul had saved enough money, and they were all going. There was to be a party, some of Annie's friends, One friend of Paul's, a young man in the same office Where William had previously been, and Miriam. It was great excitement, writing for rooms. Paul and his mother debated it endlessly between them. They wanted to furnish cottage for two weeks. She thought one week would be enough, but he insisted on two. At last they got an answer from Maple Thorpe, A cottage such as they wished for thirty shillings a week. There was immense jubilation. Paul was wild with joy for his mother's sake. She would have a real holiday now. He and she sat at evening, picturing what it would be like. Annie came in, and Leonard, and Alice, and Kitty. There was wild rejoicing and anticipation. Paul told Miriam. She seemed to brood with joy over it, but the moral's house rang with excitement. They were to go on Saturday morning by the seven train. Paul suggested that Miriam should sleep at his house, Because it was so far for her to walk. She came down for supper. Everybody was so excited that even Miriam was accepted with warmth, But almost as soon as she entered the feeling in the family became close and tight. He had discovered a poem by Jean Engelot, which mentioned Maple Thorpe, And so he must read it to Miriam. He would never have got so far in the direction of sentimentality As to read poetry to his own family. But now they condescended to listen. Miriam sat on the sofa, absorbed in him. She always seemed absorbed in him, and by him, when he was present. Mrs. Morrill sat jealously in her own chair. She was going to hear also. And even Annie and the father attended, Morrill with his head cocked on one side, Like somebody listening to a sermon and feeling conscious of the fact. Paul ducked his head over the book. He had got now all the audience he cared for, And Mrs. Morrill and Annie almost contested with Miriam who should listen best And win his favour. He was in very high feather. But, interrupted Mrs. Morrill, What is the bride of Enderby that the bells are supposed to ring? It's an old tune they used to play on the bells for a warning against water. I suppose the bride of Enderby was drowned in a flood, he replied. He had not the faintest knowledge what it really was, But he would never have sunk so low as to confess that to his womenfolk. They listened and believed him. He believed himself. And the people know what that tune meant? Said his mother. Yes, just like the scotch when they heard the flowers of the forest, And when they used to ring the bells backward for alarm. How? said Annie. A bell sounds the same whether it's rung backwards or forwards. But, he said, If you start with the deep bell and ring up to the high one, Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. He ran up the scale. Everybody thought it clever. He thought so too. Then, waiting a minute, he continued the poem. Hmm! said Mrs. Morrill curiously when he finished. But I wish everything that's written weren't so sad. I cannot see what they want drawing themselves for! said Morrill. There was a pause. Annie got up to clear the table. Miriam rose to help with the pots. Let me help to wash up! she said. Certainly not! cried Annie. You sit down again! There aren't many. And Miriam, who could not be familiar and insist, sat down again to look at the book with Paul. He was master of the party. His father was no good. And great tortures he suffered lest the tin box should be put out at Fursby instead of at Maple Thorpe. And he wasn't equal to getting a carriage. His bold little mother did that. Here! she cried to a man. Here! Paul and Annie got behind the rest, convulsed with shamed laughter. How much will it be to drive to Brook Cottage? said Mrs. Morrill. Two shillings. Why, how far is it? A good way. I don't believe it, she said. But she scrambled in. There were eight crowded in one old seaside carriage. You see, said Mrs. Morrill, it's only three pence each and if it were a tram-car. They drove along. Each cottage they came to Mrs. Morrill cried, Is it this? Now, this is it! Everybody sat breathless. They drove past. There was a universal sigh. I'm thankful it wasn't that brute, said Mrs. Morrill. I was frightened. They drove on and on. At last they descended at a house that stood alone over the dyke by the high-road. There was wild excitement because they had to cross a little bridge to get into the front garden. But they loved the house that lay so solitary with a sea meadow on one side and immense expanse of land patched in white barley, yellow oats, red wheat, and green root crops flat and stretching level to the sky. Paul kept accounts. He and his mother ran the show. The total expenses, lodging, food, everything was sixteen shillings a week per person. He and Leonard went bathing in the mornings. Morrill was wandering abroad quite early. You, Paul, his mother called from the bedroom, eat a piece of bread and butter. All right, he answered. And when he got back he saw his mother presiding in state at the breakfast-stable. The woman of the house was young. Her husband was blind and she did laundry work. So Mrs. Morrill always washed the pots in the kitchen and made the beds. But you said you'd have a real holiday, said Paul, and now you work. Work, she exclaimed, what are you talking about? He loved to go with her across the fields to the village and the sea. She was afraid of the plank bridge and he abused her for being a baby, on the hole he stuck to her as if he were her man. Miriam did not get much of him except perhaps when all the others went to the Coons. Coons were insufferably stupid to Miriam, so he thought they were to himself also, and he preached prigishly to Annie about the fatuity of listening to them. Yet he, too, knew all their songs and sang them along the roads roisterously. And if he found himself listening, the stupidity pleased him very much. Yet to Annie, he said, Such rot! there isn't a grain of intelligence in it. Nobody with more gumption than a grass-hopper could go and sit and listen. And Miriam, he said, with much scorn of Annie and the others. I suppose there at the Coons. It was queer to see Miriam singing Coons' songs. She had a straight chin that went in a perpendicular line from the lower lip to the turn. She always reminded Paul of some sad, bodicelly angel when she sang, even when it was, Come down lovers' lane for a walk with me, talk with me. Only when he sketched, or at evening when the others were at the Coons, she had him to herself. He talked to her endlessly about his love of horizontals, how they, the great levels of sky and land in Lincolnshire, meant to him the eternity of the will, just as the bowed, Norman arches of the church repeating themselves, meant the dogged leaping forward of the persistent human soul. On and on, nobody knows where. In contradiction to the perpendicular lines and to the Gothic arch, which, he said, leaped up at heaven and touched the ecstasy and lost itself in the divine. Himself, he said, was Norman. Miriam was Gothic. She bowed in consent even to that. One evening he and she went up the great sweeping shore of sand towards Thetilthorpe. The long breakers plunged and ran in a hiss of foam along the coast. It was a warm evening. There was not a figure but themselves on the far reaches of sand, no noise but the sound of the sea. Paul loved to see it clanging at the land. He loved to feel himself between the noise of it and the silence of the sandy shore. Miriam was with him. Everything grew very intense. It was quite dark when they turned again. The way home was through a gap in the sandhills and then along a raised grass road between two dykes. The country was black and still. From behind the sandhills came the whisper of the sea. Paul and Miriam walked in silence. Suddenly he started. The whole of his blood seemed to burst into flame and he could scarcely breathe. An enormous orange moon was staring at them from the rim of the sandhills. He stood still, looking at it. Ah! cried Miriam when she saw it. He remained perfectly still, staring at the immense and ruddy moon, the only thing in the far-reaching darkness of the level. His heart beat heavily. The muscles of his arms contracted. What is it? murmured Miriam, waiting for him. He turned and looked at her. She stood beside him, forever in shadow. Her face, covered with the darkness of her hat, was watching him unseen. But she was brooding. She was slightly afraid, deeply moved and religious. That was her best state. He was impotent against it. His blood was concentrated like a flame in his chest. But he could not get across to her. There were flashes in his blood. But somehow she ignored them. She was expecting some religious state in him. Still yearning, she was half aware of his passion and gazed at him, troubled. What is it? she murmured again. It's the moon. He answered, frowning. Yes, she ascended. Isn't it wonderful? She was curious about him. The crisis was passed. He did not know himself what was the matter. He was naturally so young, and their intimacy was so abstract. He did not know he wanted to crush her on to his breast to ease the ache there. He was afraid of her. The fact that he might want her as a man wants a woman had in him been suppressed into a shame. When she shrank in her convulsed, coiled torture from the thought of such a thing, he had winced to the depths of his soul. And now this purity prevented even their first love kiss. It was as if she could scarcely stand the shock of physical love, even a passionate kiss, and then he was too shrinking and sensitive to give it. As they walked along the dark fen meadow, he watched the moon and did not speak. She plotted beside him. He hated her, for she seemed in some way to make him despise himself. Looking ahead, he saw the one light in the darkness, the window of their lamplit cottage. He loved to think of his mother and the other jolly people. "'Well, everybody else has been in long ago,' said his mother as they entered. "'What does that matter?' he cried irritably. "'I can go a walk if I like, can't I?' "'And I should have thought you could get into supper with the rest,' said Mrs. Morrell. "'I shall please myself,' he retorted. "'It's not late. I shall do as I like.' "'Very well,' said his mother cuttingly, "'then do as you like.' And she took no further notice of him that evening, which he pretended neither to notice nor to care about, but sat reading. Miriam read also, obliterating herself. Mrs. Morrell hated her for making her son like this. She watched Paul growing irritable, frigish, and melancholic. For this she put the blame on Miriam. Annie and all her friends joined against the girl. Miriam had no friend of her own, only Paul. But she did not suffer so much, because she despised the triviality of these other people. And Paul hated her because, somehow, she spoiled his ease and naturalness. And he writhed himself with a feeling of humiliation. Arthur finished his apprenticeship and got a job on the electrical plant at Menton Pit. He earned very little, but had a good chance of getting on. But he was wild and restless. He did not drink nor gamble, yet he somehow contrived to get into endless scrapes, always through some hot-headed thoughtlessness. Either he went rabbiting in the woods like a poacher, or he stayed and nodding him all night instead of coming home, or he miscalculated his dive into the canal at Bestwood and scored his chest into one mass of wounds on the raw stones and tins at the bottom. He had not been at his work many months, one again he did not come home one night. "'Do you know where Arthur is?' asked Paul at breakfast. "'I do not,' replied his mother. "'He is a fool,' said Paul. "'And if he did anything, I shouldn't mind. But no, he simply can't come away from a game of wist, or else he must see a girl home from the skating rink quite proprietiously, and so can't get home. He's a fool.' "'I don't know that it would make it any better if he did something to make us all ashamed,' said Mrs. Morrell. "'Well, I should respect him more,' said Paul. "'I very much doubt it,' said his mother coldly. "'They went on with breakfast.' "'Are you fearfully fond of him?' Paul asked his mother. "'What do you ask that for?' "'Because they say a woman always likes the youngest best.' "'She may do, but I don't. "'No, he worries me.' "'And you'd actually rather he was good?' "'I'd rather he'd showed some of a man's common sense.' Paul was raw and irritable. He also wearied his mother very often. She saw the sunshine going out of him, and she resented it. As they were finishing breakfast came the postman with a letter from Derby. Mrs. Morrell screwed up her eyes to look at the address. "'Give it here, blind eye,' exclaimed her son, snatching it away from her. She started at almost boxed his ears. "'It's from your son, Arthur,' he said. "'What now?' cried Mrs. Morrell. "'My dearest mother,' Paul read. "'I don't know what made me such a fool. I want you to come and fetch me back from here. I came with Jack Breeden yesterday, instead of going to work, and enlisted. He said he was sick of wearing the seat of a stool out, and like the idiot you know I am, I came away with him. I have taken the king's shilling, but perhaps if you came for me they would let me go back with you. I was a fool when I did it. I don't want to be in the army. My dear mother, I am nothing but a trouble to you. But if you get me out of this, I promise I will have more sense and consideration.' Mrs. Morrell sat down in her rocking chair. "'Well now,' she cried. "'Let him stop!' "'Yes,' said Paul. "'Let him stop!' There was silence. The mother sat with her hands folded in her apron, her face set, thinking. "'If I'm not sick!' she cried suddenly. "'Sick!' "'Now,' said Paul, beginning to frown, "'you're not going to worry your soul out about this, do you hear?' "'I suppose I'm to take it as a blessing!' She flashed, turning on her son. "'You're not going to mount it up to a tragedy so there!' He retorted. "'The fool, the young fool!' she cried. "'He'll look well in uniform,' said Paul, irritatingly. His mother turned on him like a fury. "'Oh, will he?' she cried. "'Not in my eyes!' "'He should get in the cavalry regiment. He'll have the time of his life and will look an awful swell.' "'Swell? Swell! A mighty swell idea, indeed! A common soldier!' "'Well,' said Paul. "'What am I but a common clerk?' "'A good deal, my boy,' cried his mother, stung.' "'What?' "'At any rate, a man, and not a thing in a red coat.' "'I shouldn't mind being in a red coat or dark blue. That would suit me better if they didn't boss me about too much.' But his mother had ceased to listen. "'Just as he was getting on, or might have been getting on, at his job, a young nuisance here he goes and ruins himself for life. What good will he be, do you think, after this?' "'It may lick him into shape beautifully,' said Paul.' "'Lick him into shape! Lick what marrow there was out of his bones! A soldier! A common soldier! Nothing but a body that makes movements when it hears a shout. It's a fine thing.' "'I can't understand why he'd upset you,' said Paul.' "'No, perhaps you can't. I understand.' And she sat back in her chair, her chin in one hand holding her elbow with the other, brimmed up with wrath and chagrin. "'And shall you go to Derby?' asked Paul. "'Yes. It's no good. I'll see for myself.' "'And why on earth don't you let him stop? It's just what he wants.' "'Of course!' cried the mother. "'You know what he wants!' She got ready and went by the first train to Derby, where she saw her son and the sergeant. It was, however, no good. When Moral was having his dinner in the evening, she said suddenly, "'I've had to go to Derby today.' The miner turned up his eyes, showing the whites in his black face. "'Haster, lass! What took thee there?' "'That, Arthur.' "'Oh! And what's the gate now?' "'He's only enlisted.' Moral put down his knife and leaned back in his chair. "'Nay!' he said. "'That he never has. "'And is going down to Aldershot to-morrow.' "'Well,' exclaimed the miner. "'That's a wonder.' He considered it a moment, said, and proceeded with his dinner. Suddenly his face contracted with wrath. "'I hope he may never set foot in my house again,' he said. "'The idea!' cried Mrs. Moral, saying such a thing. "'I do,' repeated Moral. "'A fool is run away for a soldier. Let him look after himself, and I shall have no more for him.' "'At that sight you have done as it is,' she said. And Moral was almost ashamed to go to his public-house that evening. "'Well, did you go?' said Paul to his mother when he came home. "'I did.' "'And could you see him?' "'Yes.' "'And what did he say?' "'He blubbered when I came away.' "'Hm! And so did I, so you needn't, hm!' Mrs. Moral fretted after her son. She knew he would not like the army. He did not. The discipline was intolerable to him. "'Bought the doctor,' she said with some pride to Paul, "'said he was perfectly proportioned. Almost exactly. All his measurements were correct. He is good-looking, you know.' "'He's awfully nice-looking, but he doesn't fetch the girls like William, does he?' "'No. It's a different character. He's a good deal like his father—irresponsible.' To console his mother, Paul did not go much to Willie Farm at this time. And in the autumn exhibition of students' work in the castle he had two studies—a landscape and watercolour and a still life in oil, both of which had first prize awards. He was highly excited. "'What do you think I've got for my picture's mother?' He asked, coming home one evening. She saw by his eyes he was glad. Her face flushed. "'Now how should I know, my boy?' "'A first prize for those glass jars.' "'Hmmm!' "'And a first prize for that sketch up at Willie Farm.' "'Both first.' "'Yes.' "'Hmmm!' There was a rosy, bright look about her, though she said nothing. "'It's nice,' he said. "'Isn't it?' "'It is.' "'Why don't you praise me up to the skies?' She laughed. "'I should have the trouble of dragging you down again,' she said. But she was full of joy nevertheless. William had brought her his sporting trophies. She kept them still, and he did not forgive his death. Arthur was handsome, at least a good specimen, warm and generous, and probably would do well in the end. But Paul was going to distinguish himself. She had a great belief in him, the more because he was unaware of his own powers. There was so much to come out of him. Life for her was rich with promise. She was to see herself fulfilled. Not for nothing had been her struggle. Several times during the exhibition Mrs. Morrill went to the castle, unknown to Paul. She wandered down the long room looking at the other exhibits. Yes, they were good. But they had not in them a certain something which she demanded for her satisfaction. Some made her jealous they were so good. She looked at them a long time, trying to find fault with them. Then suddenly she had a shock that made her heart beat. There hung Paul's picture. She knew it as if it were printed on her heart. Name? Paul Morrill. First prize! It looked so strange, there in public, on the walls of the castle gallery, wherein her lifetime she had seen so many pictures. And she glanced round to see if anyone had noticed her again in front of the same sketch. But she felt a proud woman. When she met well-dressed ladies going home to the park, she thought to herself, Yes, you look very well, but I wonder if your son has two first prizes in the castle. And she walked on as proud a little woman as any in Nottingham. And Paul felt he had done something for her, if only a trifle. All his work was hers. One day, as he was going up Castle Gate, he met Miriam. He had seen her on the Sunday and had not expected to meet her in town. She was walking with a rather striking woman, blond, with a sullen expression and a defiant carriage. It was strange how Miriam, in her bowed meditative bearing, looked dwarfed beside this woman with the handsome shoulders. Miriam watched Paul searchingly. His gaze was on the stranger, who ignored him. The girl saw his masculine spirit rear its head. Hello, he said. You didn't tell me you were coming to town. No, replied Miriam, half apologetically. I drove into cattle market with father. He looked at her companion. I've told you about Mrs. Dawes. Said Miriam huskily, she was nervous. Clara, do you know Paul? I think I've seen him before. Replied Mrs. Dawes indifferently as she shook hands with him. She had scornful gray eyes, a skin like white honey, and a full mouth with a slightly lifted upper lip that did not know whether it was raised in scorn of all men or out of eagerness to be kissed, but which believed the former. She carried her head back as if she had drawn away, in contempt, perhaps from men also. She wore a large, dowdy hat of black beaver and a sort of slightly affected simple dress that made her look rather sack-like. She was evidently poor and had not much taste. Miriam usually looked nice. Where have you seen me? Paul asked of the woman. She looked at him as if she would not trouble to answer. Then, Walking with Louis Travers, she said, Louis was one of the spiral girls. Why, do you know her? He asked. She did not answer. He turned to Miriam. Where are you going? He asked. To the castle? What train are you going home by? I am driving with Father. I wish you could come too. What time are you free? You know not till eight to-night, damn it! And directly the two women moved on. Paul remembered that Clara Dawes was the daughter of an old friend of Mrs. Livers. Miriam had sought her out because she had once been spiral overseer at Jordan's, and because her husband, Baxter Dawes, was Smith for the factory, making the irons for cripple instruments and so on. Through her, Miriam felt she got into direct contact with Jordan's and could estimate better Paul's position. But Mrs. Dawes was separated from her husband and had taken up women's rights. She was supposed to be clever. It interested Paul. Baxter Dawes he knew and disliked. The Smith was a man of thirty-one or thirty-two. He came occasionally through Paul's corner, a big, well-set man, also striking to look at and handsome. There was a peculiar similarity between himself and his wife. He had the same white skin with a clear golden tinge. His hair was of soft brown. His mustache was golden. And he had a similar defiance in his bearing and manner. But then came the difference. His eyes, dark brown and quick-shifting, were disillute. They protruded very slightly, and his eyelids hung over them in a way that was half-hate. His mouth, too, was sensual. His whole manner was of cowed defiance, as if he were ready to knock anybody down who disapproved of him. Perhaps because he really disapproved of himself. From the first day he had hated Paul. Finding the lad's impersonal, deliberate gaze of an artist on his face, he got into a fury. What are you looking at? He sneered, bullying. The boy glanced away. But the Smith used to stand behind the counter and talk to Mr. Papelworth. His speech was dirty, with a kind of rottenness. Again he found the youth with his cool, critical gaze fixed on his face. The Smith started round as if he had been stung. What are you looking at? Three half-width of pap, he snarled. The boy shrugged his shoulders slightly. Why, your—shouted Dawes. Leave him alone, said Mr. Papelworth, in that insinuating voice which means he's only one of your good little sops who can't help it. Since that time the boy used to look at the man every time he came through with the same curious criticism. Glancing away before he met the Smith's eye, it made Dawes furious. They hated each other in silence. Clara Dawes had no children. When she had left her husband the home had been broken up and she had gone to live with her mother. Dawes lodged with his sister. In the same house was a sister-in-law and somehow Paul knew that this girl, Louis Travers, was now Dawes' woman. She was a handsome, insolent hussy who mocked at the youth and yet flushed if he walked along to the station with her as she went home. The next time he went to see Miriam it was Saturday evening. She had a fire in the parlor and was waiting for him. The others, except her father and mother and the young children, had gone out so the two had the parlor together. It was a long, low, warm room. There were three of Paul's small sketches on the wall and his photo was on the mantelpiece. On the table and on the high old rosewood piano were bowls of coloured leaves. He sat in the armchair. She crouched on the hearth rug near his feet. The glow was warm on her handsome, pensive face as she kneeled there like a devotee. What did you think of Mrs. Dawes? She asked quietly. She doesn't look very amiable, he replied. No, but don't you think she's a fine woman? She said in a deep tone. Yes, in stature, but without a grain of taste. I like her for some things. Is she disagreeable? I don't think so. I think she's dissatisfied. What with? Well, how would you like to be tied for life to a man like that? Why did she marry him then if she was to have revulsion so soon? Aye, why did she? repeated Miriam bitterly. And I should have thought she had enough fight in her to match him, he said. Miriam bowed her head. Aye, she queried satirically. What makes you think so? Look at her mouth, made for passion and the very setback of her throat. He threw his head back in Clara's defiant manner. Miriam bowed a little lower. Yes, she said. There was a silence for some moments while he thought of Clara. And what were the things you liked about her? She asked. I don't know. Her skin and the texture of her and her... I don't know. That sort of fierceness somewhere in her. I appreciate her as an artist, that's all. Yes. He wondered why Miriam crouched there brooding in that strange way. It irritated him. You don't really like her, do you? He asked the girl. She looked at him with her great dazzled dark eyes. I do, she said. You don't. You can't, not really. Then what? She asked slowly. Eh? I don't know. Perhaps you like her because she's got a grudge against men. That was probably one of his own reasons for liking Mrs. Dawes, but this did not occur to him. They were silent. There had come into his forehead a knitting of the brows which was becoming habitual with him, particularly when he was with Miriam. She longed to smooth it away and she was afraid of it. It seemed the stamp of a man who was not her man in Paul Morrill. There were some crimson berries among the leaves in the bowl. He reached over and pulled out a bunch. If you put red berries in your hair, he said, why would you look like some witch or priestess and never like a reveler? She laughed with a naked, painful sound. I don't know, she said. His vigorous, warm hands were playing excitedly with the berries. Why can't you laugh? He said. You never laugh, laughter. You only laugh when something is odd or incongruous and then it almost seems to hurt you. She bowed her head as if he were scolding her. I wish you could laugh at me just for one minute. Just for one minute. I feel as if it would set something free. But, and she looked up at him with eyes frightened and struggling, I do laugh at you. I do. Never. There's always a kind of intensity. When you laugh, I could always cry. It seems as if it shows up your suffering. Oh, you make me knit the brows of my very soul and cogitate. Slowly she shook her head despairingly. I'm sure I don't want to, she said. I'm so damned spiritual with you always, he cried. She remained silent, thinking, then why don't you be otherwise? But he saw her crouching, brooding figure and it seemed to tarry him in two. But there it's autumn, he said and everybody feels like a disembodied spirit then. There was still another silence. This peculiar sadness between them thrilled her soul. He seemed so beautiful with his eyes gone dark and looking as if they were deep as the deepest well. You make me so spiritual, he lamented, and I don't want to be spiritual. She took her finger from her mouth with a little pop and looked up at him almost challenging. But still her soul was naked in her great dark eyes and there was the same yearning appeal upon her. If he could have kissed her in abstract purity he would have done so. But he could not kiss her thus and she seemed to leave no other way and she yearned to him. He gave a brief laugh. Well, he said, get that French and we'll do some... some furlain. Yes, she said in a deep tone, almost of resignation and she rose and got the books and her rather red, nervous hands looked so pitiful he was mad to comfort her and kiss her. But then he dared not or could not. There was something prevented him. His kisses were wrong for her. They continued the reading till ten o'clock when they went into the kitchen and Paul was natural and jolly again with the father and mother. His eyes were dark and shining. There was a kind of fascination about him. When he went into the barn for his bicycle he found the front wheel punctured. Fetch me a drop of water in a bowl, he said to her. I shall be late and then I shall catch it. He lighted the hurricane lap, took off his coat, turned up the bicycle and set speedily to work. Miriam came with a bowl of water and stood close to him, watching. She loved to see his hands doing things. He was slim and vigorous, with a kind of easiness even in his most hasty movements. And busy at his work he seemed to forget her. She loved him, absorbedly. She wanted to run her hands down his sides. She always wanted to embrace him, so long as he did not want her. There, he said, rising suddenly. Now could you have done it quicker? No, she laughed. He straightened himself. His back was towards her. She put her two hands on his sides and ran them quickly down. You are so fine, she said. He laughed, hating her voice, but his blood roused to a wave of flame by her hands. She did not seem to realize him in all this. He might have been an object. She never realized the mail he was. He lighted his bicycle lamp, bounced the machine on the barn floor to see that the tires were sound, and buttoned his coat. That's all right, he said. She was trying the brakes that she knew were broken. Did you have them mended? She asked. No. Why didn't you? The back one goes on a bit. But it's not safe. I can use my toe. I wish you'd had them mended, she murmured. Don't worry. Come to tea to-morrow with Edgar. Shall we? Do about four. I'll come to meet you. Very well. She was pleased. They went across the dark yard to the gate, looking across he saw through the uncurtained window of the kitchen the heads of Mr. and Mrs. Libers and the warm glow. It looked very cozy. The road with pine trees was quite black in front. Till to-morrow, he said, jumping on his bicycle, You'll take care, won't you? She pleaded. Yes. His voice already came out of the darkness. She stood a moment watching the light from his lamp race into obscurity along the ground. She turned very slowly indoors. Orion was wheeling up over the wood, his dog twinkling after him, half smothered. For the rest the world was full of darkness and silent, save for the breathing of cattle and their stalls. She prayed earnestly for his safety that night. When he left her she often lay in anxiety, wondering if he had got home safely. He dropped down the hills on his bicycle. The roads were greasy so he had to let it go. He felt a pleasure as the machine plunged over the second, steeper drop in the hill. Here goes! he said. It was risky because of the curve and the darkness at the bottom, and because of the brewer's wagons with drunken wagoners asleep. His bicycle seemed to fall beneath him, and he loved it. The darknessness is almost a man's revenge on his woman. He feels he is not valued, so he will risk destroying himself to deprive her altogether. The stars on the lake seemed to leap like grasshoppers, silver upon the blackness as he spun past. Then there was the long climb home. See, mother? He said as he threw her the berries and leaves onto the table. Hmm! she said, glancing at them, then away again. She sat reading alone, as she always did. Aren't they pretty? Yes. He knew she was cross with him. After a few minutes he said, Edgar and Miriam are coming to tea tomorrow. She did not answer. You don't mind? Still she did not answer. Do you? he asked. You know whether I mind or not. I don't see why you should. I have plenty of meals there. You do. Then why do you begrudge them tea? I begrudge whom tea? What are you so horrid for? Oh, say no more. You've asked her to tea. It's quite sufficient. She'll come. He was very angry with his mother. He knew it was merely Miriam she objected to. He flung off his boots and went to bed. Paul went to meet his friends the next afternoon. He was glad to see them coming. They arrived home at about four o'clock. Everywhere was clean and still for a Sunday afternoon. Mrs. Morrell sat in her black dress and black apron. She rose to meet the visitors. With Edgar she was cordial, but with Miriam cold and rather grudging. Yet Paul thought the girl looked so nice in her brown cashmere frock. He helped his mother to get the tea ready. Miriam would have gladly proffered but was afraid. He was rather proud of his home. There was about it now, he thought, a certain distinction. The chairs were only wooden and the sofa was old, but the hearthrug and cushions were cozy, the pictures were prints and good taste, there was a simplicity in everything and plenty of books. He was never ashamed in the least of his home, nor was Miriam of hers, because both were what they should be and warm. And then he was proud of the table, the china was pretty, the cloth was fine. It did not matter that the spoons were not silver nor the knives ivory-handled, everything looked nice. Mrs. Morrell had managed wonderfully while her children were growing up so that nothing was out of place. Miriam talked books a little. That was her unfailing topic, but Mrs. Morrell was not cordial and turned soon to Edgar. At first Edgar and Miriam used to go into Mrs. Morrell's pew. Morrell never went to chapel, preferring the public house. Mrs. Morrell, like a little champion, sat at the head of her pew, Paul at the other end, and at first Miriam sat next to him. Then the chapel was like home. It was a pretty place with dark pews and slim, elegant pillars and flowers. And the same people had sat in the same places ever since he was a boy. It was wonderfully sweet and soothing to sit there for an hour and a half next to Miriam and near to his mother, uniting his two loves under the spell of the place of worship. Then he felt warm and happy and religious at once. And after chapel he walked home with Miriam, whilst Mrs. Morrell spent the rest of the evening with her old friend Mrs. Burns. He was keenly alive on his walks on Sunday nights with Edgar and Miriam. He never went past the pits at night by the lighted lamp-house, the tall black headstocks and lines of trucks, past the fans spinning slowly like shadows, without the feeling of Miriam returning to him, keen and almost unbearable. She did not very long occupy the Morrell's pew. Her father took one for themselves once more. It was under the little gallery opposite the Morrell's. When Paul and his mother came in the chapel the livers' pew was always empty. He was anxious for fear she would not come. It was so far and there were so many rainy Sundays. Then, often very late indeed, she came in with her long stride, her head bowed, her face hidden under her bat of dark green velvet. Her face, as she sat opposite, was always in shadow. But it gave him a very keen feeling, as if all his soul stirred within him to see her there. It was not the same glow, happiness and pride that he felt in having his mother in charge. Something more wonderful, less human, and tinged to intensity by a pain as if there were something he could not get to.